


Barbara Maitland: Relationship Police

by Nekuyo



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Barbara's POV, F/M, For the most part, Lydia has a crush, Lydia loves Beetlejuice, Slow Burn, Teenage Hormones, any and all inappropriateness is in barbara's head, barbara is an anti, but mostly beetlejuice himself, kind of, outside perspective, this confuses everyone, this is mostly pg-13
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-19 00:04:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20321767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekuyo/pseuds/Nekuyo
Summary: Beetlejuice comes back and Barbara takes it upon herself to police his relationship with Lydia as much as possible.A series of oneshots about Lydia's crush on Beetlejuice and Barbara trying to deal with raising a teenager without any previous experience.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not tagging this as underage. There's no sex.  
If that changes I will gladly put that in the warnings.  
Also Barbara isn't doing anything wrong or invasive, she's just trying to be motherly to a teenage girl with a crush on an older guy.  
(And yes, there will probably be some snark at antis in this.)

As Barabara recalled, it’d all started with a knock on the door.

Well, a rather large banging and clattering outside the door, followed by silence, and then a timid knock. And that was how Beetlejuice had somehow come back into their lives only a few months after they’d gotten rid of him the first time.

Even now she could recall the way everyone had shrunk back at little when Delia had opened the door to reveal the filth covered man. Everyone except for Lydia. Lydia’s whole face lit up and she had practically dove into his arms. Surprising everyone, but possibly Beetlejuice most of all.

With the context Barbara had now this made much more sense, but at the time had been baffling and seemed like a huge betrayal. Her, sort of but not quite, daughter liked the man who had nearly been responsible for her exorcism more than she liked her. It had hurt.

The very first question they all had was what in the world was he doing back here at all?

“They kicked me out of the Netherworld.” Beetlejuice explained. “It was bound to happen once mom remanifested. She’s the reason I was in the living world in the first place last time. I don’t think feeding her to a sandworm won me any favors either. I mean, some of the ghosts like me a little more but….” He trailed off there.

“So basically your mom kicked you out of the house?” Lydia teased. 

“Shut up, this is partially your fault anyway because of that stupid marriage thing.” Beetlejuice pouted. “I mean, she probably would have found another way to do it eventually, but that made it way easier.” 

“What?? And don’t blame that on me, I got the idea from you to begin with. Also what does us having been married have to do with anything?” Lydia asked.

“It’s not ‘been married’ according to her. It’s ‘are still married’. I still think she’s bullshitting and making it all up just to be rid of me, but unfortunately she’s the ruler of the place so she gets to do that. Apparently the fact that I was technically undead before the wedding means that I was dead in the eyes of the contract because there’s no precedent for…. Well, me. And because death can’t “part” us the fact that I died shortly after means pretty much nothing.” 

No one had known how to process that, so it was just collectively decided that they would address that at a later point in time.

“What does that have to do with…?” Adam waved his arms to indicate everything up until that point.

“Apparently, it’s a kind of loophole for the dead? If you posthumously get hitched to someone still alive you get a ‘Get Out Of The Netherworld Free’ card. It’s only good until said living person kicks the bucket of course. I mean, it doesn’t make them alive, it just puts them on the same plane of existence I’m in. That weird sort of limbo. They’re not demons so bringing them back from the dead takes a lot more work, and access to their old mortal body, and even then all you’ve really got is a zombie on your hands. I’ve only ever heard of it happening a few times but it didn’t really end well for anyone and I don’t really recommend it.” Beetlejuice was rambling and getting way off topic, but that seemed like a good place to stop him.

“Alright, so you’re in the living world again because you were kicked out of being dead because your marriage to Lydia stuck.” Adam said quickly, “but why come back… here?”

Beetlejuice just frowned and looked at the floor. 

“Oh c’mon, don’t be dense.” Lydia said, rolling her eyes. She waves her hands at Beetlejuice as if just by looking at him the answer should be clear. And it was.

He was lonely. 

Or rather, he was scared of being lonely again. No one could really blame him for that one. As far as they could tell from what they’d pieces together and what Lydia had told them Beetlejuice had been invisible and alone on earth for centuries with only an occasional ghost for company when he’d managed to trick them into staying on earth with him for a little while. The people in this house were the only people he knew who could see him and would, albeit begrudgingly for the most part, talk to him. 

The four adults took to a different room and discussed this among themselves. But not before Barbara heard Lydia ask Beetlejuice “So, we’re still married huh?” in a worryingly suggestive tone. She was pulled out of the room by Adam before she could hear Beetlejuice’s reply. 

After a very quick and heated debate where the Deetz were for and the Maitlands were against it was decided that they’d let him stay on a probationary period. As long as he was in his state of limbo and no one spoke his name three times he was generally harmless. And they’d have to read the Handbook for the Recently Deceased very carefully to make sure there weren’t any more weird loopholes he’d try to trick anyone into exploiting, and just in general to be forewarned about the sort of things he might pull to hurt them.

Lydia had already read the new copy with all the pages cover to cover a few times, so that would help. After being tricked into hurting someone she loved once because of something she didn’t know she vowed that that was never going to happen again. She really was a sensible girl most of the time.

“Lydia can’t be allowed to say his name three times again. Not after last time. I’m sure she knows this but we have to make it _abundantly_ clear.” Charles said emphatically. 

“I want him to stay away from her as much as possible.” Barbara said. “He might think because they’re married he’s allowed to take liberties with her.” 

Delia, who had wandered off to peek through the door once she’d said her piece about him staying, gigglesnorted.

“I don’t think it’s him that we’re going to have to worry about.” She said quietly. 

Barbara, recalling what she’d heard on the way out the door, bolted back into the living room. 

For a split second she got a glimpse of Lydia sitting suggestively on Beetlejuice’s lap, her arms around his shoulders and whispering something to him that was turning the weird patches of discolored skin at his temples pink. In reaction to her bursting in on them Beetlejuice poofed himself over the armchair and fell into it with a thud, and Lydia quickly rearranged herself to look as innocent as possible on the couch. 

“Hey Barbara!” Lydia said cheerfully. “So, have you guys come to a decision on the whole ‘Can Beetlejuice Stay’ thing?” 

Barbara narrowed her eyes at Lydia suspiciously, but the girl didn’t flinch. She turned her glare to Beetlejuice, who twitched a little but otherwise didn’t give anything away. 

When given the news that yes, under certain conditions, Beetlejuice could stay, Lydia had squealed and hugged her so hard her arms had nearly gone through Barbara’s insubstantial form. 

Barbara supposed that was worth putting up with the fact that she’d be policing teenage hormones for the next 3 years. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia's at school and Beetlejuice just has to deal with that.

Barbara and Delia were hanging out in the kitchen, relaxing and chatting while Delia was trying to put together a light lunch for her and Charles. Barbara was assuring her, once again, that she and Adam did not eat and didn’t need to be included in this. Delia certainly knew this by now, but she was too polite to not ask. 

“Do you think Beetlejuice eats? I mean… I know he’s dead, but like… He’s not dead in the same way you are. Do you think  _ he’d _ like a sandwich?” Delia asked. 

“I…. don’t know?” Barbara confessed. Beetlejuice, as he had explained it, was one of a kind. Quite a lot of the laws governing the dead didn’t really apply to him. Ghosts couldn’t eat and didn’t have any reason to, but perhaps being undead was different. 

Beetlejuice had been back for two days now, and in all that time he hadn’t asked about food or hinted that he was hungry. Though, unless Barbara was missing something it seemed a bit like he was avoiding asking anything of anyone. Apparently he sensed that asking to stay was a big enough favor that he shouldn’t tread on anyone’s good graces. 

To Barbara’s immense frustration he only seemed interested in spending time with Lydia. Lydia was more than happy to oblige him on this. 

Though they had followed the rules Barbara had firmly laid on them. No pranks that would cause property damage or physical harm to anyone, stay away from the Handbook for the Recently Deceased, Lydia is under no circumstances to let Beetlejuice out into the living realm by calling his name three times unless it’s a life or death situation, and Beetlejuice isn’t allowed in Lydia’s room past 8 O’clock at night. 

They’d both complained loudly about those rules, but so far they’d obeyed them. Though Lydia’s way of obeying that last one was to circumvent it entirely by never going to bed. She instead decided to fall asleep right on top of Beetlejuice on the couch at the end of the day. Beetlejuice then treated her like an overgrown teddybear and refused to let her go until someone woke her up to make her go to bed. 

Barbara wasn’t quite sure what to think of any of this. She wasn’t ready to call this behavior codependent…. Yet. They were just very excited to see each other again. Lydia was possibly Beetlejuice’s only friend in the world, and Lydia was generally quite antisocial and didn’t make connections easily. Barbara wouldn’t be surprised if Lydia considered Beetlejuice her best friend, despite only knowing him for four days and the fact that he’d lied and manipulated her for most of that last one. She’d talked about him quite often in the months that followed his departure and it’d been clear that she had missed him. 

“Why don’t I go ask?” Barbara said, her attention coming back to the question at hand. Delia nodded and Barbara headed for the living room. 

Beetlejuice was laying on the couch, his chin on the armrest closest to the door, sulking. He’d been there since Lydia had left for school that morning. 

“Are we going to have to deal with this every day?” Barbara asked

“School is every day??” Beetlejuice asked, sounding horrified at the prospect.

“Most of them.” Barbara answered. 

“Uuuugh!!” Beetlejuice sat up on the couch just so he could slump over the armrest dramatically. “Breathers live such boring lives. What possible use does anyone get out of sitting at a desk in a big building for hours every day?” 

“To learn things. Lydia loves going to school.” Barbara answered.

“You learn things by doing stuff and going places, not by listening to some idiot talk about all the stuff you're not doing.” Beetlejuice said as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. 

“Well, we don’t all have the time to learn everything we want to know that way.” Barbara countered. “We aren’t all immortal demons cursed to wander the earth forever.” 

Beetlejuice sighed deeply, as if being reminded of what he was made him incredibly tired. It probably did. He went back to staring at the door forlornly. 

“I came in to ask if you wanted a sandwich.” Barbara said after the silence stretched on for a moment. 

“Huh?” Beetlejuice asked, taking his attention off the door again.

“Delia is making lunch, and we weren’t sure if you could eat or if you would want any even if you could.” Barbara clarified. 

Beetlejuice looked conflicted. He eyed the front door and then looked back at Barbara. She tried not to laugh. 

"You won't miss her if you come have lunch. She'll be gone for another three hours anyway." Barbara assured him.

Beetlejuice sighed miserably again and then got up off the couch.

"What kind of sandwich?" He asked. Barbara just led him to the kitchen with a smile.

Delia, Barbara had observed, was very determined that she could get along with anybody. And she was able to put that determination and her people skills to good work with Beetlejuice, who had accepted the ham and cheese sandwich gratefully even though he'd explained that he technically didn't need to eat. He'd certainly fooled Barbara with the way he attacked the sandwich as if he'd been starving to death.

But despite his questionable table manners and his lewd comments about Delia's sex life Delia didn't seem to mind chatting with Beetlejuice. Barbara had wandered off once they'd gotten into a debate about the definition of an orgy and whether or not Delia had ever been in one. It wasn't a topic she was interested in hearing either of their opinions on. 

Barbara came back into the kitchen when it got closer to three. Lydia was going to be home in a few minutes and she wanted to make sure there was a healthy snack waiting for her. Much to her surprise Beetlejuice and Delia were still in there, the topic of discussion having now changed to something else.

"You did not have sex with Katherine Hepburn." Delia said firmly. "You can't interact with the living and she would have been in her mid nineties when she died."

"And still a looker too." Beetlejuice confirmed. "Definitely worth all the effort it took to get her motor revving." Delia giggled loudly.

Barbara rolled her eyes and pulled supplies out of the refrigerator to get started on her task.

It had only been ten minutes or so when Beetlejuice interrupted the conversation. 

"Do you hear that?" He asked suddenly. Barbara and Delia both stopped and stretched their senses. Barbara thought perhaps she heard an engine pulling away from the end of the drive at the bottom of the hill, a noise she only recognized from living in the house for so long.

"Lydia!" Beetlejuice shouted before he bolted from the kitchen at lightning speed and, Barbara assumed, headed for the front door. Barbara and Delia looked at each other and burst into quiet chuckling.

An ear shattering bellow of "Lydiaaaaa!" followed by a crash and a frustrated exclamation of "Beetlejuice!" made Barbara and Delia stop and rush into the living room to see what was going on. 

Lydia was on the floor with Beetlejuice lying on top of her, arms wrapped around her waist and head buried in her stomach. 

"You were gone foreeeever!" Beetlejuice whined.

"Beetlejuice, you're getting my uniform dirty, get off!" Lydia was scolding him with a laugh in her voice.

"Not until you promise to never leave ever again!" Beetlejuice demanded.

Lydia rolled her eyes and flopped down on the floor in defeat, resigned to live her life under the clingy demon. She smiled fondly down at Beetlejuice and put a hand on his head and started brushing it through his hair. Beetlejuice stiffened, and then relaxed with a sigh.

When he nuzzled his face into Lydia's stomach and Barbara jerked in alarm. She should really put a stop to… whatever that was. But before Barbara could do anything Delia pulled her out of the room, clearly thinking that Lydia and Beetlejuice could use some privacy. 

Clearly she and Barbara had two different ideas on how to raise a teenager.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barbara and Beetlejuice talk about colors.

Beetlejuice had been living in the Maitlands/Deetz house for a whole month now to very little disaster (there had been that one time with the fire alarm, but everyone was willing to chalk that up to an innocent mistake) and as such the underlying tension had finally disappeared from the interactions he had with most of the family. 

This pleased Barbara because it made him cling to Lydia… slightly less. He’d stopped sulking on the couch every single time she was away (though the first hour after she left for school was dedicated to an extra big sulk), and had finally given up on his tendency to tackle her the moment she came through the door. Now, at least, he waited until she got to a safe place to land.

Barbara considered this good progress to Lydia and Beetlejuice having a healthy sort of relationship. One with healthy boundaries. One that Barbara didn’t have to worry about. 

Now that Beetlejuice was straying to this side of normal with his attachment issues, Barbara hoped that she could work on Lydia.

The problem was, Barbara mused, that Lydia went to an all girls school. That didn’t really give her any opportunity to interact with any boys her age, and she’d said that most of the girls at her school were very boring and also straight so that probably wasn’t an option either. Redirecting Lydia’s perfectly healthy, but rather misguided, crush on the only older male person she knew was going to be pretty much impossible under these circumstances. 

Barbara looked at the older male in question. It was the weekend and Delia had taken Lydia shopping in New York. Consequently Beetlejuice was occupying himself by bothering everyone else in the house until they got back this evening. It was her turn with him because she was the one doing the task that needed the least concentration, and also the most interesting by whatever metric Beetlejuice had to determine interesting. Possibly he just went by how colorful it was.

Barbara had confessed to Delia at some point that all of the junk in the attic was depressing and stressful to look at because it was all related to her old hobbies, which she found unfulfilling. She’d intended this conversation as an opening into asking Delia to please help her in clearing out the attic. However Delia, in an effort to be as helpful as possible, decided that this also meant Barbara needed some new hobbies. 

Delia had started with trying to introduce Barbara into meditation and Yoga, but neither of them seemed worth doing. Perhaps it was because she was dead and there was only so much one could do to improve upon oneself at that point. No amount of Yoga was going to make her body more energetic or flexible or healthier. Meditation was okay but a part of Barbara was a little scared that if ever she achieved inner peace she’d just move on and be gone. Wasn’t one of the core parts of being a ghost about having unfinished business and being slightly dissatisfied? Better to not risk it in her opinion. 

So now Barbara was getting back into arts and crafts. She was steering clear of pottery or anything clay based, but she’d taken up painting recently because she’d never really tried it before. Honestly, it was still too early to tell whether or not she liked it, but it was a nice way to pass the time anyway. 

It was also quite colorful and interesting to look at. Which is why Beetlejuice was up in the attic with her and not downstairs doing anything else. Since both Lydia and Delia were out of the house Beetlejuice was lacking both of his favorite people to bother. Barbara was fairly sure she ranked under Adam in Beetlejuice’s hierarchy of preferred people to hang out with, so she assumed Adam was either doing something very boring and sedentary, or had kicked him out. 

Beetlejuice was currently sniffing the paints individually by color, somehow convinced that they’d all smell different. Barbara wondered yet again what Lydia saw in him. A sense of humor went a long way to be sure, but surely no one could make anyone laugh that much. 

“I told you that they all smelled the same,” Barbara said once Beetlejuice had finished sniffing the paints she had out. 

“They all smell different on the wooden thing,” Beetlejuice argued. Barbara looked at the palette in her hand and sniffed it curiously. She raised an eyebrow at Beetlejuice, wondering if he was just messing with her. He gestured as if to say ‘see??’ when she lowered the palette.

“They just smell like paint to me,” Barbara said. Beetlejuice rolled his eyes.

“Whatever, I know what I smell,” He said, giving up on the topic. 

“Beetlejuice…. Are you… smelling the colors?” Barbara asked. 

“What?” He asked back. 

“I think you’re smelling the colors, not the paint.” Barbara clarified. “You have synesthesia.” Beetlejuice looked at her like she’d grown two heads. Or whatever passed for completely bizarre by his standards.

“Are you just making stuff up because you’re upset that you can’t tell the paints apart by smell and I can?” He asked suspiciously.

“You couldn’t when they were still in the tubes though. Because you couldn’t see the color of the paint,” Barbara countered. “And no, I’m not making it up, it’s a real thing. It’s when the parts of your brain that pick up the senses cross wires and you’ll pick up input from one of your senses and feel it with another one. You’re picking up the color of the paint with your eyes and sensing it with your nose.” 

This was a pretty interesting discovery, but not out of tune with what she knew of Beetlejuice overall. He seemed to be rather sensitive to color in general, to the point that when his mood shifted his whole look could change color sometimes. It didn’t seem to happen to those extremes any more nowadays. Barbara suspected that having people around to talk to helped to temper his moods enough that they didn’t swing wildly enough to change the color of his whole outfit anymore. But his hair was still prone to changing color from time to time. Purple if Lydia was angry and didn’t want to talk to him, a slight tinge of red if he’d gotten mad at her, Barbara had even seen it a mix of the two colors as well which made it end up looking somewhat maroon. 

“So my brain is all messed up and I’m smelling stuff most people don’t?” Beetlejuice asked. 

“I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘messed up’,” Barbara said with a frown. “Just… a little different. Lots of people process things differently than what people would consider normal because of how their brains work. This is just more immediately obvious than most.” 

Beetlejuice just grunted an acknowledgement, now preoccupied with squirting a little bit of yellow paint out of the tube and sniffing it curiously. He seemed to like the smell.

“What does it smell like?” Barbara asked. Beetlejuice sniffed the tube again, this time accidentally getting a bit of yellow on the tip of his nose. 

“Sort of like…. Standing out in the middle of a field on a really hot day.” He answered after a moment. “But, like… a sunny one. Not one that’s all cloudy and wet.” 

Barbara nodded. She understood the smell he was talking about even if her brain didn’t associate it with the color yellow as strongly as his did. She could see the connection though. 

They spent the next couple of hours with Barbara mixing various colors and finding some of the more interesting smells. Barbara wondered if it was possible to make an abstract painting this way, or if that was something you really needed to see the world differently to accomplish. 

Eventually the sound of a car pulling up the drive caught Beetlejuice’s attention and he perked up with excitement. 

“Lydia’s home!” Beetlejuice shouted as he bounded down the stairs. Barbara giggled and took off her smock before following at a more sedate pace. 

When Barbara got to the living room she had to sidestep around Beetlejuice, who seemed to have stopped in his tracks after just getting into the room. Lydia and Delia were pulling outfits out of a mountain of shopping bags. Barbara saw that Lydia was already wearing a new dress, but she didn’t have a good view of it yet.

“Barbara!” Delia said delightedly when she spotted her. Barbara smiled.

“It certainly looks like the two of you had a productive day,” Barbara commented. There were an awful lot of clothes. 

“Oh absolutely! We got Lydia a whole new wardrobe,” Delia agreed. 

That had been the main reason for the shopping trip to begin with. Lydia had officially grown out of all of her mourning clothes, let alone anything else in her closet which had been bought months earlier than that. She’d been almost inconsolable when she discovered that her favorite dress no longer fit. It was just part of the perils of being a teenager and therefore prone to growth spurts. 

“I even managed to talk her into some more cheerful looking pieces, like the dress she’s wearing right now," Delia commented. At that Lydia stood up straight and gave a little spin.

“What do you think Barbara? It was agreed that black was perfectly acceptable as long as it didn’t look like I was ‘the reincarnation of a victorian widow’,” Lydia said. 

The dress was black with capped sleeves and a sweetheart neckline. It fit fairly close down to the waist, with the assistance of a bow that was tied in the back, and then flared out at the hips into a full looking skirt that ended mid thigh.

"Oh, that's very pretty. The skirt seems so short though, when did your legs get so long?" Barbara asked. Lydia just grinned. 

"Oh nonsense, there were tons of girls around her age wearing skirts and dresses in this style when we were in town. They were all able to move around without showing anything inappropriate. And it looks so cute on her," Delia defended. "Don't you think so Beetlejuice?"

It was only then that Barbara remembered that Beetlejuice was in the room. He'd been suspiciously quiet throughout all this. Barbara turned around to look at him. 

Beetlejuice was standing unnaturally still, his eyes glued to… something. 

"Beetlejuice?" Barbara asked. She frowned when he didn't respond and went over to tap him on the shoulder. "Beetlejuice!"

The demon nearly jumped out of his skin.

"I wasn't looking at anything!" Beetlejuice protested quickly as he came back to reality. There was an awkward pause and Beetlejuice winced as he seemed to realize what he'd just said.

"We were asking what you thought about my new dress," Lydia said. She gave another little spin to show off the dress in question. Beetlejuice looked more stunned than Barbara had ever imagined seeing him.

"I don't …. You're asking me?" He asked.

"That's right. How do I look?" Lydia replied. 

Barbara could suddenly tell that Lydia had been waiting hours to ask that question. His answer was going to be important to her. They all looked at Beetlejuice expectantly. He seemed to freeze under the pressure. 

"It's ...different," he managed to choke out. "But a good different! Looks great on you babes," he clarified when the faces around him looked dissatisfied with that answer. 

The smile Lydia beamed at him probably would have melted a normal man, Barbara had to concede that. So the fact that Beetlejuice was still standing was to his credit. Barbara couldn't help but notice, however, that the roots of his hair had gone bright pink.

"Oh dear," Barbara thought. 

Apparently Lydia's feelings might not be unrequited. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone was wondering about Lydia's new look, just think of Hotaru Tomoe from Sailor Moon and go from there.


End file.
